I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, and let me tell you, it is THE MOST amazing, damning, interesting, entertaining and convicting thing I’ve read in years. Ehrenreich went undercover with “the working poor” in 1999 and 2000 by relocating to new communitites and finding affordable (i. e., substandard) housing and an unskilled job in each. She’s such a great writer (with a razor-sharp sense of humor) that her experiences scandalize and entertain all at once.
The main scandal is that, in spite of our fantasies about how America works, we are increasingly dependent on an underclass for whom hard work isn’t enough to pay the essential bills.
“When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when for example, she goes hungry so you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.” (p. 221)
You should read this book, and in the spirit of its subject matter, you can get it used through Amazon for less than $5 including shipping.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Josh Stevenson // May 3, 2007 at 5:26 pm
What case does she make for her belief that the poor benefit everyone else? In a practical sense they do I guess. I would have to see her definition of “poor.” There is a poor mindset and a state of poverty- hopefully she draws the distinction.
It seems that “hard” work, isn’t valued as much as “skilled” work anymore.
2 Dennis Mullen // May 3, 2007 at 5:56 pm
In response to Josh, I probably didn’t set the quote up adequately. Ehrenreich’s ironic point is that our cheap products that we value come to us because the working poor are “donating” their labor by being underpaid. In her book, the most vivid example of this is in the housekeeping business where maids work for just over $6 an hour cleaning huge beautiful homes.
3 iluvlucy8 // May 3, 2007 at 9:14 pm
I never thought when I was working for 8.00 an hour or less that I was donating my time to the upper class. It’s an interesting concept. I looked at it as survival. My husband, who makes a fairly decent wage still has to work
64 hours a week in order for our large family to survive.
We are not wealthy by any means, but I remember the time when I had no idea how to make ends meet. What I thought about wealth was this-if there came a time and I had money to burn, I sure hoped I wouldn’t hold up my nose to the people like me.
Well, I really don’t have money to burn, but I do have respect for people working for that amount because I’ve been there.
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